My commented whitepaper review of Emanate - an artist collaboration on the EOS blockchain.
This is a very exciting development because I envisioned this opportunity quite a while ago too. It doesn't take too much imagination seeing
Steem
interactive Discord radio stations like SMA (credit to @Seveaux),
Pixabay royalty free stock photos and videos
After being initially skeptical I started out to just notify others but then I decided to publish it on EOStalk.io. I therefore heavily copied but modified the format of the original Emanate whitepaper.
That noted I wish Steem was a wiki but we'd have to wait for EOS to be done or make our own dapp.
video
Feature Overview
- Monetisation of song parts / stems
- Official and unofficial remixes
- Sharing of samples, sounds, effects, midi patterns and loops
- Vocalist and MC collaborations with beatmakers
- Private file sharing
- Production, mixing and remix competitions
- Live performance
- Podcasts
- Initial Track Offerings
- Labels bid for original tracks to be signed
Roll out
- Web Application for music publishing, monetizing and discovery.
Tracks created on the Emanate platform will be instantly published for discovery and monetisation via listener playback, collaboration with other artists and commercial licensing. Listeners can also earn MN8 tokens in exchange for playlist creation and sharing.
- Smart-collaborations.
Allow content creators to instantly collaborate with other artists and describe the detail of the collaboration in the form of a smart-contract, ensuring that everyone is compensated fairly for their contribution.
Mac and PC studio apps.
Music producers will use the Mac and PC application for sound discovery and track management instead of the web app, helping to further streamline the production workflow. These studio apps may becomes nodes in the content network.
This I find rather weird considering the last sentence
DAW integration.
The Emanate platform will integrate fully with the Digital Audio Workstation. Sounds, samples and track packages that are shortlisted in the discovery apps will appear in the DAW file browser to be queued and auditioned for tracks.
Audio attribution.
Proprietary algorithms will ascribe ownership to rightful creators and will help identify and reward unique music.
MN8 Audio Exchange Protocol SDK
Published audio will integrate with other music streaming services and the smart-collaboration SDK will be open for additional software and hardware integration. The SDK will include a live performance layer which will turn Emanate into the world’s first real-time audio production and performance marketplace
Motivation
As a musician, I want to encourage other artists to collaborate with my music. But recently, a visual artist had all of his Vimeo videos taken down for using just 30 seconds of one of my songs. The label that exclusively licenses one of my songs likely had a bot looking for copyright infringement that automatically took it down. I hear the artist now has them back online after a few weeks of hair loss and negotiations. I’d personally like to avoid these types of situations in the future, which means providing an easy way for others to license and collaborate with my music.
Piracy and copycats
- All files will be checked at upload stage or audio analysis matches, and tagged when a similar title is applied.
- Community tagging will enable users to self-police unfair content
- Users proven to be sharing pirated materials will have their account suspended
- Browser fingerprinting will be able to uniquely identify most users so that sounds stripped from the platform and shared in other channels can be traced back to user behaviour.
- Unusual traffic or user behaviour will be tracked and investigated
- Emanate accounts
willwith? a balance over $1000 USD will be asked to verify their identity.
I'm not sure how to police great artist who steal but good luck to them.
All the non-free content will be stored in IPFS encrypted, using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) (20) algorithm with both user keys and
platform keys, in a way that the track will only be accessible through the
Emanate API/SDK after end-user validation of access rights and required
royalties and/or licensing accounted for, all of which is enforced by smart-
contracts on the blockchain.
Smart - collaborations
Each time two artists share some audio, an agreement is executed on the blockchain.This is the backbone of the Emanate ecosystem which is used for royalty calculations and artist payments.
I really wonder how the team would like to implement this. Not every artist will be valued the same and in can happen that celebrities
Smart-collaborations will enable Emanate to work with the music industry and will enable our artists to access a wealth of samples, sounds and vocals and publish music immediately without further contracts or negotiations.
Algorithmic Audio Attribution
Emanate will employ a number of algorithms to assist with the recognition of unique material and creation of derivative works. To combat plagiarism, examples include source separation of uploaded audio content to decipher:
- possible sub-ownership of audio, recognition of previously published melodies, timbres and beats.
Ideally, any prior art will be recognized. If a submitting artist infringes copyright, an algorithm may inform an existing artist.
These algorithms will be achieved through strategic partnerships and license deals. Working closely with Matt Brown (Audio Engineering Advisor)Emanate will look to include the use of his globally patented work.
Finding Analogues
I couldn't figure out their MN8 protocol which sounded fancy but that wasn't quite what I liked.
MN8 AEP is to music what HTTP is to web content.
MN8 AEP consists of the following key components:
- Distributed and decentralised file storage
- API endpoints for each audio entity
- Two-way usage data between agents and audio entities
- Ownership ledger
- Distribution nodes
Usage of the protocol will require the MN8 tokens for transacting, with a fee structure that makes usage affordable for amateurs, yet scalable enough to handle the sort of volume that commercial applications will demand. Fort his, Emanate is exploring a way to correlate the micropayment ration with the bitrate or throughput of the audio.
Well I have some ideas for that: why not extend this to your individual musical parts or stems too? If you are really worrie about piracy, don't give away pristine recordings but settle on lower bitrate audio.
You can also switch the bitrate randomly so that any downloaded stream will be unique.
Blockchain
With Dsound as our proof of concept on Steem, and some investigation on Muse we have settled on EOS 21 as the best platform to commence buildof our production grade platform. EOS covers decentralised storage, ultrafast processing, no transaction fees, and smart contracts. Furthermore
We believe that those involved in EOS have the right vision for blockchain technology and we relate strongly to the ethos. [16](https://www.lendacademy.com/eos-google-of- blockchain/)
The Team
Pedro Reis Colaço
Founder/CTO/Lead developer
Pedro is a full-stack developer of 20 years and a life-long music lover. Also known as ‘PRC’, Pedro created the Steemit based music sharing platform Dsound.audio which received an outburst of praise from the blockchain community. Pedro is the technical cofounder of Emanate and is passionate about changing the face of music collaboration and monetisation through the power of blockchain and crypto.
James Frew
Founder/Industry Relations Director
Jimi is an entrepreneur, music producer and DJ with more than 12 years of professional experience. Jimi has produced, engineered, remixed and curated for Evolution Radio, BBC 1XTRA, KIIS FM and 2DAY FM, Tommy Trash, A-Trak, The Stafford Brothers, Gryffin, Marquee Las Vegas. He has scored film placements for Magic Mike, Trophy Wife, Persons of Interest and the Bold Type.
Sean Gardner
Founder/CEO
Sean has spent the last 12 years creating digital brand communications and technical platforms for top global brands and agencies. He has launched Augmented Reality projects as early as 2010 and produced Australia’s first branded Virtual Reality experience in 2014. Sean is music-obsessed and is known for making impossible ideas an effortless reality.
Trent Shaw
Founder/CFO/COO
Trent knows music and media inside out, and has over 14 years experience commercialising digital platforms in the music and entertainment space including years with Sound Alliance, Moshtix, and eBay. Trent is also no stranger to the startup space with several ventures and early stage investments under his belt.
Thomas Olsen
Head of Music
Grammy Award nominated musician, DJ and producer well known for his ‘Tommy Trash’ project which has taken him to the biggest stages in the world over the last 10 years. Thomas has worked with the likes of Tiesto, Ingrosso, Atrak and Digitalism as well as remixing Zedd, Deadmau5, Swedish House Mafia, David Guetta and Empire of the Sun. He is also an experienced investor in technology start ups such Genero, Roller Digital and Socialive. He believes that blockchain platforms such as Emanate will drive innovation and democratisation across the entire music industry.
Blake Cannell
Full-Stack Developer
Blake is a full-stack developer with 10 years experience ranging from advertising and game development to large-scale web development. In 2011 Blake competed in the World Skills competition representing Australia in web design. Blake is a DJ, designer and developer excited to combine his passions to contribute towards a decentralised future, free of unnecessary intermediaries.
Ron Radge
Creative Director
Who is Radge? Art Director, Design Director, Creative Director, Film Director, DJ, Taste-maker and fashionista. Vissukamma Ratsaphong has guided the visual direction, tone and tastes of brands such David Jones, Sass and Bide, Client Liaison, Modular, Park Life and more. Radge brings a little class to the Emanate team and his music curation is off the block-chain.
Closing comments
Our desire to build on a fee-less, scalable, multi-faceted blockchain like EOS will see us build a platform that is practical in every sense and we truly believe that Emanate could be held up as one of blockchain’s first real ‘killer-apps’.
https://pixabay.com/en/wheat-wheat-spike-wheat-field-1117267/
This sounds (pun intended) as a huge undertaking and I'd be worried that this project might end up like Peerity. But the fact that @prc has made @dsound and the fact that it works quite well for such a small team - I believe we can expect some pretty interesting project and I hope many talented people will join. I consider myself included!
sources
- 16 [Could EOS be the Google of the Blockchain?](https://www.lendacademy.com/eos-google-of- blockchain/)
- 21 EOS
- Project Homepage